Sammi’s Weekender #286 (bibliopole)

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Larry Jeff

He had much to say
about Texas, Texans, Mexicans,
and the cowboy way.

McMurtry, best known
for essays, books, and movie scripts
which Hollywood’s Oscar would pay.

But Larry most loved book scouting,
a proud bibliopolist,
another dying breed.


Look both ways learning about history, myth, legend, and reality.
Mind the gaps because therein may hide the best of the stories.

 

Larry Jeff McMurtry (1936-2021) was an American novelist, essayist, bookseller (book-scout) and screenwriter whose work was predominantly set in either the Old West or contemporary Texas. Dying breeds, historical truth, and books attracted him personally and professionally. My favorite McMurtry quotes are:

“People would be bored shitless if they had to love only the good in someone they care about.”

“Backward is just not a natural direction for Americans to look – historical ignorance remains a national characteristic.”

“Only a rank degenerate would drive 1,500 miles across Texas without eating a chicken fried steak.”

Sammi’s Weekender #202 (yonder)

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Book Up

Perhaps the most prolific
“Minor Regional Novelist,”
memoirist, and
cowboy de-mythologist
has told his final truth
and attended his last picture show,
over yonder,
in Archer City, Texas.

Two days ago, that
gringo who told the
truth about
drug-store cowboys,
closed up shop.


Look both ways as you measure success,
especially of vanishing breeds.
Mind the gaps wherein hidden depression lasts for years.


Larry McMurtry, a prolific novelist and screenwriter who demythologized the American West with his unromantic depictions of life on the 19th-century frontier and in contemporary small-town Texas, died on Thursday at home in Archer City, Texas. He was 84.

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